


Wandering

by niggletsune



Series: Fanfiction Giveaways [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banshee Lydia Martin, Banshee Powers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4029268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niggletsune/pseuds/niggletsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Request: s5 based - Lydia has been acting strange and nobody notices but stiles. He catches her wondering around at night and he tries to snap her out of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wandering

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stilesbanshee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stilesbanshee/gifts).



          He hadn’t noticed at first and now that he was looking at her, standing at the entrance of Eichen House with her pillow tucked under her arm and her eyes rimmed with tears, he was kicking himself for not noticing sooner. She was in the same predicament that he had been in just months ago.

            “You don’t have to do this, Lydia,” he tried to persuade her but he saw the look on her face. Pure and utter exhaustion from lack of knowing what in the hell was going on in her life.

            “I do,” she said. Her lip quivered. “You know I do.”

 

***

            The summer had been a good one. Things were quiet. The gang was closer than ever, spending days hiking out in the reserve, having movie nights and Stiles’. Going down to the swimming hole out at Lydia’s lake house. Then school started and something started to change. They were all busy with college applications, SAT test, piles of homework and they stopped seeing each other for a while. Scott and Stiles might go a day without talking. They hadn’t gone a day without talking since they met each other. Scott and Kira had no time for one another, putting a strain on their relationship. Stiles was so worried about getting into a good college that he couldn’t be bothered to give Malia extra help. While Lydia was almost completely MIA except for in classes. She didn’t sit with her friends anymore. All her free hours were spent in the new library working on essays, making a schedule for visits, and narrowing down her best qualities to present to them. One day out of the blue she stops planning.

 

            Stiles happens to catch Lydia in the library and she’s just staring out into space. She has books open beneath her chin and there’s a pen in her hand but she’s just gazing out the window. He wants to sit with her but it feels like it’s been so long since they’d done anything together that it feels awkward. So, he chooses a table a few feet away from her and he can’t help himself from watching her work. But, she’s not working at all. She’s still staring. He checks to see if anyone else is staring off into space, knowing Beacon Hills he wouldn’t put it past the world to all be frozen in time except for him, but he sees his fellow classmates all functioning properly. Stiles opens his book and begins going over chapter bullets for his test in lit. He gets distracted after a few moments and looks up at Lydia again. She’s still stuck in a dazed state. The bell for the second half of lunch rings and she doesn’t even budge. Finally, Stiles can’t take it anymore. He doesn’t think that anyone else knows how Lydia’s probably been staring into space for literally the last ten minutes but he’d rather save her from the ‘crazy’ rumors going around again before anyone did. Sighing, Stiles grabs all of his books and shoves them back in his bag before going over to Lydia’s table.

            “Lydia,” he barks in a harsh whisper. He snaps his fingers in front of her face and finally she comes back to reality. Stiles gives out a sigh of relief but immediately Lydia’s eyes glaze over with fresh tears. “Lyds, what’s wrong?”

She swallows and shakes her head. “Nothing, I have to go.” In a hurry to get going she slammed her book shut and stuffed it roughly in her bag.

            “Lydia, what happened? What did you see?”

She’d blinked and the tears had gone away but Stiles could still see the sadness in them. “Nothing, Stiles. Nothing at all.” She stood up and was gone before he could utter another word.

 

            Stiles tries to ask Scott and Kira if they’ve noticed how weird Lydia has been acting but both of them say they haven’t seen Lydia in days. When they have a pack meeting to confirm that there’s no oncoming danger Lydia spends the entire time going over the bestiary with Derek and Stiles doesn’t get a chance to ask if she’s okay. He does find it weird that she’s not doing homework or essays. Usually she was working on something school or college related, unable to pay attention to whatever issue was at hand during the pack meeting.

            “Can I leave?” she asked Derek, her voice hushed and sad.

Derek nodded and pecked her in a brotherly manner on the forehead. They’d gotten close in past few weeks and Stiles was starting to wonder to if they were more than friends. Lydia packed up her stuff and slipped out, no one else even noticed she was gone.

 

            The pack meeting lasted longer than they thought it would. Derek wanted to go over some new information Lydia had found in the bestiary about emissaries, which Stiles would be becoming soon, werecoyotes, and even kitsunes. After sticking around a little longer, asking Derek questions about terms and conditions and suck about his emissary duties, Malia decided she didn’t want to wait any longer and left Stiles alone. Finally, he got the chance to ask Derek about Lydia.

            “Hey, is everything okay with Lydia?”

Derek looked up from the book and gave Stiles the same blank expression he gave him all the time, as if he hadn’t even asked a question. “What do you mean?”

            “I mean is everything okay with Lydia, just like I asked.”

Derek sighed heavily. “Why are you asking me? Shouldn’t you be asking Lydia?”

Stiles fought the urge to growl at Derek’s ever growing ability to piss him off with a single exchange. “I’m asking because she seems to be closest to you these days and I haven’t talked to her in weeks.”

            “Well, Stiles as far as I know Lydia is fine. But if you’re her friend, as you claim to be, you should probably talk to her about it.”

            “What do you mean ‘claim to be’, what the hell kind of shit is that Derek?”

            “You all bring Lydia into this pack and you expect her to do everything on her own. Translate the bestiary, figure out her powers, give all of you detailed class notes, and grieve on her own. Now, she’s making big decisions and everyone is too busy to help her with any of them. I get that it’s senior year and you’ve all got important stuff going on but we’re a pack, Stiles. Lately, it seems like we’re not.”

His comment hit Stiles hard and he didn’t really have any way to refute what Derek had said. He was right; they did leave her alone most of the time. Stiles had grown busy with helping Malia last year and since then it’d become sort of a routine to be with her all the time. Sure, they were together but they didn’t always have to be _together_. “Since when are you such a Lydia expert?”

            “Since you stopped listening to her every word and I stopped,” Derek deadpanned.

That was when Stiles turned on his heel and promptly left. He never stayed late to discuss things alone with Derek again.

 

He didn’t really mean to start taking the route home as the one that went past Lydia’s house but when he spotted her, blank-faced, walking in the middle of the road right towards on his Jeep he slammed on his brakes, relieved he had. Stiles jumps out of the driver’s seat, leaving the door open and immediately grabbing her by the shoulders. Her eyes are void of any emotion or realization of what she was doing.

“Lydia!” Stiles yells her name. She doesn’t even flinch. He shakes her shoulders, yelling once more and finally she’s come to. Frantically, she looks around at her surrounds and without any warning she breaks down. Stiles is so astounded by her deep sobbing that he doesn’t speak for several long seconds. “Lydia, what happened?”

She takes deeps breaths to try and calm herself but it’s like the unknown tragedy plauges her minds and the sobbing starts all over again.

            “Okay, Lydia,” Stiles takes a deep breath to collect himself. “Let’s just get in the Jeep and drive for a bit.”

Before she can even nod Stiles guides Lydia to the passenger side of the Jeep. Mechanically she gets in and when Stiles comes around to the other side of the Jeep he can still hear her sniffling inside.

 

            “It started about two months ago,” Lydia finally says after they drive awhile. She’s no longer crying but her voice is still filled with sadness and the scratchy nature of fresh tears having been shed. “I started zoning out in the middle of the day. Like when I heard Barrow with the flies and the pounding of the MRI after the Nogitsune took over.”

Stiles cuts her off. “Wait, you heard the pounding of the MRI?”

Lydia looks over at him and nods shyly. “I screamed, not even a minute later I got a call from Scott saying you were gone. For a second I thought you died. But, I didn’t feel the loss of our connection so I just went with that feeling.”

Stiles pouts in an admiration sort of way. “Wow, I didn’t know that.”  
Lydia nods and continues to explain. “So, I started zoning out. Then, I started seeing these visions in my nightmares. They were about the pack being torn apart but it was because of me. I haven’t told anyone this yet but I have a new development in my abilities,” she looks over at Stiles to get a reaction but he simply seems curious.

Lydia takes a deep breath and asks Stiles to pull over at the fishery that is coming up. After a few minutes they arrive and Stiles parks on along the coast. Lydia steps out of the car and walks a few paces to shield herself behind the large leafy trees.

            “Cover your ears,” she says. Then, she screams.

 

            Long silvery fibers had come from her hands and projected out into the lake before them. Stiles watched in awe as the waves crashed and crossed over each other. When she stops, Lydia is gasping for breath. “There isn’t a lot of light around here for me to get power from, at least that’s how I think this new thing works.”

            “How did you find out about it? What is it?”  
Lydia sits to rest and shrugs, something very unlikely for her to do. Stiles is caught off guard but sits as well. “It just happened one night. I’ve been wandering lately, mostly out to the reserve. Something’s coming I think. But so many nights I wake up there and I’m completely unaware that I’ve even left my bed. The voices are getting bad again and I’ll be in the middle of the reserve screaming my head off at unknown danger. I’ve been trying to dig up more information from all the bestiaries I can translate but I’m getting nowhere once again,” this is when she starts crying. “I feel like I’m losing my mind for a second time, Stiles. I can’t focus on anything. My dreams are all filled with nightmares about losing you and the pack and I don’t know what to do. I think I need to get some help.”

            “Help?” Stiles asks because he’s pretty sure he knows what she means but he hopes she isn’t thinking about her last resort option.

            “There might be others like Meredith and I down there. I can’t keep waking up in the middle of the woods at dawn with my clothes torn, tears dried on my face, and my throat raw from screaming the night before. It’s tremendously offputting,” a sob escapes her throat and Stiles pulls her into his side.

            “You don’t have to go there.”

He feels Lydia nod. “But I want to,” she lifts her head and she looks at him. “I need to get a grip on my powers before we move away for school. I won’t be known as a nutjob at Yale, I can’t.”

            “You’re going to Yale?” Stiles asks, incrediously surprised. Not because its Yale but because he hadn’t heard.

            “I got my early acceptance letter yesterday.”   

            “Congratulations, Lyds,” NYU is looking better and better to Stiles already.

She takes a deep breath. “I need to do this for myself and for the pack. I need to know how to protect everyone,” she looks Stiles in the eyes while in his embrace. “Can you take me to Eichen House?”

 


End file.
